The combined market value of all cryptocurrencies in circulation has pushed beyond the significant milestone of $30 billion for the first time ever, underlining the ever-expanding interest in digital currencies and the blockchain technology.
Data from CoinMarketCap reveals bitcoin as the top dog among cryptocurrencies, valued at over $20 billion. Bitcoin prices scaled $1,275 today (a high of $1,280 on the Bitstamp Price Index at press time) as the world’s most prominent cryptocurrency is valued at over two-thirds of the total cryptocurrency market cap.
Inversely, however, bitcoin has dropped in the overall market share, which makes for good reading for the overall cryptocurrency ecosystem. Bitcoin’s market share among cryptocurrencies peaked at an all-time high of 96.20% in November 2013 (the days leading up to Japanese exchange Mt. Gox’s implosion). At the start of 2017, bitcoin’s market share reached 87.88% before dropping to a then all-time low of 71.75% in mid-March.
Bitcoin’s dominance in market value is warning further as other cryptocurrencies make gains, dropping to an all-time low below 65% in early April.
The altcoin market has soared since the turn of the year with the likes of Ethereum, Dash, Monero and Ripple making significant gains.
Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin began the trading around $8 per coin in January this year. By the early days of March, ETH had more than doubled to $20 but the gains were only beginning. By the end of the month, Ethereum was trading above $50 per coin and continues to do so at the present time. Collectively, this amounts to a market cap of above $4.5 billion.
The third and final cryptocurrency of the billion-dollar club, Ripple, rose from $237 million in market capitalization at the turn of the year to an all-time high of $2.08 billion earlier this month, scaling nearly 9x. Ripple’s market cap currently stands at $1.2 billion. A number of new features and integrations with major banks around the world have helped spur investors’ faith in Ripple’s token, XRP.
Altogether, the combined altcoin market cap has grown from $2.207 billion at the beginning of the year to an all-time high of $10.32 billion.
Featured image of ballons’ mass ascension from Shutterstock. Charts from CoinMarketCap.
